glorious by their presence than a regal saloon. It was to Swallowfield that she migrated,—a few miles from Strathfieldsaye, the doors of which were ever open to her; and Eversley, where Charles Kingsley lived and laboured, and whence he would often come to enjoy a rest and chat in Mary's cosy cottage.
It is sad to record that the lot of one who composed for us such' pure and graceful episodes of English life was not itself easy and devoid of care. It was, indeed, hardly so: a literary career, even when successful, is fraught with frequent anxiety and disappointment; and that of Mary Russell Mitford was no exception to the rule. Her latter days were, to some extent, clouded over by narrow means and disease; she put the last touches to her novel Atherton, as a letter to her constant friend, Mr. Bennoch, informs us, "when very few people could even have held a pen." Finally, esteemed and regretted by all who knew her, she died at her residence, Swallowfield Cottage, near Reading, January 10, 1855, aged 68. Three days before her death,—in almost her last letter,—she wrote: "It has pleased Providence to preserve to me my calmness of mind; clearness of intellect, and also my power of reading by day and by night; and, which is still more, my love of poetry and literature, and my enjoyment of little things."
As materials for her biography we have her own Recollections of of Literary Life and Selections from my Favourite Poets and Prose-writers (1851, 3 vols. 8vo),—a made-up book, singularly deficient in interest, with an almost entire absence of personal recollections of any kind whatsoever. It must not therefore be sought for as an autobiographical narrative; but, in her own words, as an attempt to make others relish a few favourite authors as she relished them herself. Then we have the Memoirs and Letters of Charles Boner, with Letters by Mary Russell Mitford to him during Ten Years, edited by R. M. Kettle (2 vols. Bentley, 1871, 8vo); the Letters of Mary Russell Mitford, edited by Henry Chorley (1872, 2 vols. 8vo); an article by the writer last mentioned in the Quarterly Review, No. cclv., January, 1870, on "Miss Austen and Miss Mitford;" the Life of Mary Russell Mitford, etc., related in a Selection from her Letters to her Friends (1870, 3 vols. 8vo); The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford, in Letters from her Literary Correspondence, edited by the Rev. A. G. L'Estrange (1882, 8vo); an obituary notice in the Gentleman's Magazine (vol. xliii. p. 428); the Memories of Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall; and lastly, some very interesting "Recollections of Miss Mitford," published soon after her death in the Art Journal, to which they were contributed by her faithful and confidential friend, Mr. Francis Bennoch, a city merchant, with additions by the editor of that admirable serial.
In person, Miss Mitford was certainly, if the truth must out, like Thomson, "more fat than bard beseems." She was described by Jerdan, with truly British lack of gallantry, as "short, rotund and unshapely." My friend, Mr. S. C. Hall, from whom better things might have been expected, talks of her as a "stout little lady, tightened up in a shawl," and alludes to her "roly-poly figure, most vexatiously dumpy." This latter is the very phrase which Jerdan says Lord Byron was wont to apply to women of her build. Obnoxious, however, as all these phrases are, they can hardly be thought misapplied to a lady whose appearance elicited from so kindly and refined a person as "L. E. L." (Miss Landon, the
